Posted on 11/15/2006 11:39:25 AM PST by Sub-Driver
Rove Sells Election Spin; Some in GOP Aren't Buying
By Kenneth T. Walsh 25 minutes ago
White House political architect Karl Rove is back on the offensive, offering an aggressively positive spin on last Tuesday's elections.
He is telling GOP operatives and organizers that things weren't as bad as they seemed and that the news media have been exaggerating the extent of GOP losses.
"There was a rush to say there was a huge wave against the Republican Party," says a Republican strategist who is close to Rove. "That was premature."
For example, Rove says many races went down to the wire--there were 35 House contests in which the winner got 51 percent of the vote or less--suggesting that the country is still closely divided between Republicans and Democrats. In the 18 races decided by 8,000 or fewer votes, the GOP won 12 and lost six, Rove says. Rove argues that there was a bad "environment" for the GOP, one marked by stories of scandal and corruption, intensified by the unpopularity of the Iraq war and President Bush.
Rove estimates that 10 House seats were lost to the GOP specifically because of one-time scandals and that those losses weren't due to any flawed strategy on his part. Rove also says the results were not outside the norm in which a president's party generally suffers losses in congressional elections in his sixth year. In addition, Rove tells glum Republicans that the party "saved" eight to 14 GOP candidates because of its vaunted 72-hour plan to get out the GOP vote.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
KarLaRazaRove?
Puleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze.
Well, Karl, I thought it was your job to correct these deficiencies.
....It's only a flesh wound!
I guess he's not "MAGNIFICENT" anymore............
Seems the RNC is deeply invested in Kool-Aid.
Cause everyone's drinking deeply.
And this is good news??
I'm kinda tired of spin.
We got stomped. Sumthin's gotta change.
Tell that to now out of work J.D. Hayworth, who jumped on the Tancredo bandwagon and lost.
Also many of the new "democrats" ran as GOP lite, but will vote the pelosi line.
If they had run on their core beliefs(pro-tax raises, pro-abortion, etc.etc), they would have lost.
Took the Dems 12 years to rest control of Congress from the GOP. And they had the support of the media.
I predict now that the thing that will tip control of Congress back to the GOP will be the bankruptcy of the social security system--in 2020 or so.
Says who.....the Enemedia? Yeah, that's who said it. For Karl to now repeat their lies disgusts me.
That is, Rove wasn't saying it: he's the one claiming it's being said (and using it to defend his own failings).
Karl Rove flunked this last election.
Burns was not going to win and Rove didn't put the pressure on him to retire.
Rove was also a terrible recruiter. Johanns nebraska, north dakota, rossi, douglas vermont.
Also so many gop reps in swing districts retired or ran for higher office.
The gop oppo research was also terrible while the dems were on top of their game.
You think there was some other reason?
KarLaRazaRove makes some good points -- this was an mid-term election, and the numbers were not THAT far out of whack. But he knew there was corruption rot within the GOP operatives that was going to cost 10 extra seats. To be a "uniter" instead of a "divider" President Bush had to run back to the center to his conservative base -- and he didn't. So, the voters couldn't figure out which tax-and-spend, pro-amnesty Democratic party to vote for. Plus, women and particularly the wives of our Reserves serving in Iraq voted against the extended schedules of their husbands. The election was critical and maybe he coasted.
"He is telling GOP operatives and organizers that things weren't as bad as they seemed and that the news media have been exaggerating the extent of GOP losses."
Someone needs to kick that egghead's ass, and tell him to quit trolling for a job for 2008. He had his day, time to go back to county commissioner politics in texas. We need someone to keep the president on base, with the base, not in a friggin bullpen throwing balls instead of strikes.
Thanks for your past service Karl. Now go away.
Personally, I prefer substance over spin.
I think 2004 gave us an inflated view of Rove's talent. John Kerry was a pathetic candidate. He was a terrible speaker with no big ideas, he had a tremendous tendency to stick his foot in his mouth, he flip-flopped like crazy and he had an offputting elitist manner. And yet he came within 180,000 votes in Ohio of winning! That should have set off warning bells.
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